


don't like, don't play

by gortysproject



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: How Not To Pass The Time Spent In A Brig: A Comprehensive Guide, M/M, Word Games, a heftier amount of self-loathing from jacobi, a hefty amount of angst, i wrote this in a couple of hours don't hate me, it's also implied to be O-V-E-R daniel dumped his ass in mini episode 14, kepler being awful, the heftiest amount of jacobi loathing other people, the relationship is more implied than explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 19:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11904627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gortysproject/pseuds/gortysproject
Summary: kepler's a fan of roadtrip games. jacobi's been locked in the brig with him for weeks. this can only end badly.





	1. i-spy

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Не нравится — не играй](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13495780) by [WTF_Fictional_Podcasts_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Fictional_Podcasts_2018/pseuds/WTF_Fictional_Podcasts_2018)



> i actually had the idea for this fic before episode 52 came out, but sarah shachat validated the hell out of my headcanon

“i spy,” jacobi starts obediently, his gaze flickering dully around the room, “with my little eye,” and the gaze locks on the view through the window, “something… beginning with… s.”

kepler sighs. jacobi can hear the disappointment in the exhale. “star.”

“okay.” he shifts, wrists flexing experimentally where they’re cuffed behind his back. he’d asked minkowski to lock them in front of him, so the strain was easier on his shoulders, but she ignored him – apparently, he could _escape_. “i spy, with my little eye, something beginning with w.”

there is another sigh from kepler. “wolf 359?” he suggests, somehow conveying the question in his tone despite the monotonous nature of his normally-animated voice. it betrays just how long they’ve been playing this game.

jacobi’s hand twitches with the intent of raising it to give kepler a nicely sarcastic thumbs-up, before he is reminded of the handcuffs keeping the hand in place behind his back. “congratulations,” he replies drily instead.

“can’t you try something a little more… exciting?” kepler asks.

“fine,” jacobi replies, biting back on the desire to point out _you want something exciting, you don’t play this game_. “i spy, with my little eye, something beginning with…” he hesitates. then, confidently, he continues: “b.”

silence hangs over the room for a brief moment. then, in possibly the most resigned voice jacobi’s ever heard kepler use, his former commander replies, “blue dwarf star.”

jacobi snorts. “i was just thinking _blue star_ , but, yeah, you get it.”

kepler groans. “mr jacobi,” he says slowly, “these games are meant to make time go _faster_. i know our alien neighbours have talents in manipulating the passage of time, but i don’t think any of them have your unique skill of _slowing it down_ quite so tediously. where’s your sense of fun?”

“hey,” jacobi bites back. “the stupid game was _your_ idea. don’t like, don’t play.”

there’s a brief chuckle from the overhead speakers, and both kepler and jacobi appear to cringe minutely at the reminder that hera’s been watching this entire interaction. “wee—ee—eell,” she starts, the comms crackling as she glitches over her irritatingly smug tone, “if you want someone with a sense of _fun_ , colonel, i can join in.”

somehow, jacobi’s pushed kepler so close to the edge that he seems relieved by the interruption. “hera,” he greets warmly, though jacobi knows he doesn’t think of her even remotely fondly. “go ahead. try not to make it anything to do with wolf 359.”

“let’s see,” hera continues, voice annoyingly peppy in a way that tells jacobi she already made up her mind on what she’d choose before she even interrupted them. “i spy, with my _very large motion sensors_ , something… that beg—begins with… d.”

kepler blinks. “now, _that_ is a challenge,” he croons. “unless – dwarf star.”

“nope.”

“deep space?”

“nooo. wrong again. how many chances are—are you _supposed_ to get to answer this before i win?”

kepler’s eyebrows raise fragmentally. “well,” he starts, “that hasn’t come up in mine and jacobi’s game, since everything he seems to choose is guessed within the first or second try.”

“doug eiffel,” jacobi interjects. before kepler can point out _doug eiffel isn’t here_ , he continues, “just because _we_ can’t see it, doesn’t mean _she_ can’t. with her _very large motion sensors_.”

kepler’s eyes flicker up to the ceiling, wondering if the challenge hera set for him is truly _that_ challenging. “no,” she replies, “it’s definitely in the same room as you. very close to you.”

jacobi’s eyes dart around the area. out of the corner of his eye, he sees kepler look around, too. “demolitions expert?” kepler asks. jacobi wrinkles his nose.

hera rejects this, too, but tells them, “you’re getting warmer—mer.”

“disastrously incompetent commanding officer?” jacobi asks, and ignores the slightly amused edge to kepler’s glance. “oh, no, wait – disastrously incompetent _former_ commanding officer.”

“veee—eery warm,” hera replies. she sounds like she has all the time in the world.

lips curling into a slight smirk that only spells out _revenge_ in jacobi’s experience, kepler says almost immediately after, “doctor maxwell’s friends,” and revels in the way jacobi flinches from the words.

“dick,” jacobi mutters.

there’s a pause.

“correct, mr jacobi!” hera crows, and kepler sighs. “though i _was_ looking for it in the plural. now, i’m going to say that since neither of you got this in, hmm—mm, _three_ guesses, i’m still in charge. i’ll make this one easier. i spy, with my little motion sensors, some—something beginning with a!”

there’s another moment of silence, as kepler sulks over his game being hijacked by someone who actually knows how to make it fun.

“if it helps,” hera adds, “the word ends in _holes_. unauthorised vocabulary is provided courtesy of officer eiffel.”


	2. sentence carrying

“what,” jacobi says flatly.

“sentence carrying!” kepler repeats, voice upbeat. “two or more players. the first one says a word, such as… _the_. the second person then says another word, such as, _dog_. between them, they carry the sentence on, until they’ve made a story, such as… _the dog went to the park and bit a child_. you never know where the sentence is going to go, because you can’t guess what word your partner will choose.”

there’s a moment of hesitation, before jacobi replies, “no.”

“time,” kepler shoots back, the curve of his smile indicating that he’s fully aware jacobi wasn’t intending to start the game like that.

“no, that wasn’t part of the –” jacobi sighs. “i’m saying no to _playing_.”

“and i’m working with what you’re giving me,” kepler replies amicably. “any good improviser would do the same.” jacobi doesn’t reply for a long moment, so he adds, quietly, “you don’t remember playing this before?”

jacobi remembers this game from before. playing dumb would be a lie both of them can see straight through. he lies anyway. “don’t recall it,” he says, voice empty of emotion.

“i can refresh your memory,” kepler says, and jacobi’s gut twists uncomfortably at the idea of kepler reeling off the events of a night like _that_ with the air of one of his ridiculous _long stories short_. “you and i were trapped in skjervoy,” he starts, “an unexpected snow storm preventing us from travelling back to the us, and also interrupting our radio signal so we couldn’t call for help. we were waiting it out in a tent we’d had to nail down into the hillside ourselves, because norwegians –” he exhales a quiet huff of a laugh. “norwegians don’t do business the way the rest of the world does business.”

teeth gritted, jacobi waits for him to get bored of taunting him. it doesn’t work. of _course_ it doesn’t work.

“now, you were irritated, because nothing says _sleepless night_ like minus four degrees fahrenheit. i suggested a word game to pass the time, aaaand to raise our spirits, since we were expecting to be trapped for at _least_ a couple more hours. i could tell you weren’t interested, and elected to ignore it, since i knew you’d play anyway.” he pauses. “you were good like that. _obedient_.”

the word drips from his tongue cruelly.

“i can’t remember the exact sentence we came up with,” kepler continues, faux-oblivious to jacobi’s discomfort, “but i remember the way you leaned in, helplessly, like a moth to a flame. i liked that. and i remember –”

“let’s just play the fucking game,” jacobi spits.

kepler chuckles. “if you say so. let’s start with… _once_.”

“upon,” jacobi replies unenthusiastically, angry that kepler can still manipulate him into doing these things, angry at himself for falling for it, angry that this word game is better to play than listening to kepler’s arsenal of stories about a time when he _trusted_ him.

“a.”

“time.” _filler_. they might as well have not said any of that, for all the _story_ they got out of it.

“there.”

“was.”

“a.”

jacobi pauses, for a brief moment. “man.”

“who.”

“got.”

kepler doesn’t say anything for a second, before deciding on, “his.”

“good.”

“friend?”

“ _killed_.” jacobi says it with an air of finality.

for a long moment, kepler doesn’t speak. “sounds like a sad story,” he comments, eventually, and jacobi wants to scream.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> every time my mum goes on a business trip to norway, she ends up on a sleigh


	3. gamble with the truth

“the point of the game,” kepler says, “is that you gamble with the truth. it gets very exciting, sometimes.”

even if the words _gambling with the truth_ hadn’t piqued jacobi’s interest somewhat, after sitting in solid silence for the last day and a half, _anything_ would get his attention by now. “o…kay?”

“the game works as such,” kepler explains. “i ask you a question. it can be as easy or hard to answer as i want – say, _what’s your favourite colour_ , or, _what’s your most traumatic childhood memory_. you answer with a number dictating how willing you are to answer the question, on a scale of one to ten. one is, _i would’ve told you this anyway_. ten is, _i’m taking this secret to my grave_. with me so far?”

“yes,” jacobi replies monotonously.

“good. then, i ask you a _second_ question. traditionally, this question tends to be harder to answer. you rate it again. whichever question you gave the lower rating, you have to answer. we’ll have a practice round.” he pauses, as though he’s thinking, but then – “mr jacobi, what’s your favourite colour?”

jacobi rolls his eyes. “two.”

“and… what’s your most traumatic childhood memory?”

“nine.”

kepler smiles. “there we go. not that i don’t already know it’s red.”

the comment sends a slight shiver through jacobi, and he wonders just how far back, how _deeply_ kepler remembers everything there is to know about him. a game like this should be useless on kepler’s part – anything he wants to know about jacobi, he already knows. that’s how they’ve always been. that’s how they always will be.

“now,” kepler continues, “for the actual game. we take it in turns. was maxwell’s safety more important to you than your own?”

the question comes out of nowhere, striking jacobi right in the chest, and he feels at a loss for words for a long moment before he can stumble over an awkward, clumsy, “seven.” he doesn’t want to talk about maxwell.

so, obviously, kepler does.

“was maxwell’s safety more important to you than… _mine_?”

this game was a bad idea, and he’s starting to wonder just what he got himself into. “ _eight_. and, yeah, maxwell’s safety was more important to me than my own. you knew that.”

“mm,” kepler hums noncommittally. “i suppose i did. your turn.”

jacobi takes a moment, flicking through the endless questions buzzing in his mind, trying to figure out if there were any he could trick kepler into actually answering. “what’s your biggest regret?” he asks, trying to sound distant, disinterested. it doesn’t work. the curiosity filters into his tone and they both hear it.

“nine,” kepler says, surprising him. he tries not to let it show on his face.

“huh.” jacobi hesitates. he ploughs on to his second question before he can second-guess himself. “did you ever actually love me?”

there’s a brief flicker of something behind kepler’s steady gaze, something that suggests he clearly didn’t expect for jacobi to have the guts to actually ask a question like that. silence hangs over the room for a long moment. “ten,” kepler responds, emotionless.

a cold tendril wraps around jacobi’s heart, squeezing it uncomfortably, as kepler continues, “my biggest regret… allowing these idiots the chance to succeed with their mutiny.”

somehow, it feels like a lie, but unless jacobi wants to call on hera to monitor kepler’s heart rate like a sentient lie detector, he has no choice but to accept it.

kepler is silent for a long moment. jacobi waits, inevitably, for him to bring up maxwell again. “do you,” he starts, voice slower than usual – calculating, as though he’s delicately crossing a minefield and choosing each word as he’d choose each step, “wish i’d never hired you?”

jacobi blinks. “uh, six.”

“do you wish i’d never hired maxwell?”

_there it is_. jacobi considers the answer to that question with a new kind of self-loathing he’s never experienced before. he’s always known he was selfish. it’s never bothered him before. but, now, thinking over it, with all these years of hindsight, knowing what kepler did, what cutter did, what _minkowski_ did, he still can’t imagine saying _yes_.

if kepler hadn’t hired her, maxwell wouldn’t be dead. if kepler hadn’t hired her, jacobi would have spent all these years alone. “seven,” he says, knowing the number is just high enough to avoid having to answer the question, pretending his mind isn’t chanting _ten, ten, ten, ten, ten_.

“well?”

right. now he has to answer the first. “no,” he replies, casual, eyes drifting to the window as he talks. wolf 359 is as blue and starry as ever, but somehow far more interesting when jacobi is required to talk. “sure, i wouldn’t be stuck in here with you, but… goddard didn’t suck. the time before the hephaestus mission didn’t suck.”

“don’t forget that,” kepler replies mildly.

jacobi ignores him. “do you wish we’d never come up here?” he asks, before he can really think through his questions.

“eh, six,” kepler says easily, leaning back against the pipe his one hand is still cuffed to.

jacobi clicks his tongue. he has to try and think of a harder question than that. “do… you…” he pauses. there’s a question on his mind, but he genuinely can’t decide where he thinks kepler will rank it. “do you think we’re gonna get off this station alive?”

kepler pauses for a long time. “do… i… think… we’re going to get off this station… alive?” he repeats slowly. the drawl sounds oddly contemplative, as though he doesn’t already know what he thinks on it. jacobi knows better than that. only, after the hefty pause, he replies, “three.”

“what?”

“ _three_. and my answer is, that depends on who you count as _we_.”

“you and me,” jacobi says dumbly.

kepler tuts. “you asked the question, and i answered. better luck next time. now,” and he leans forward slightly, eyes narrowing not in anger but in thought. “did you ever doubt your ability to follow orders when it came to terminating the hephaestus crew?”

“nine,” jacobi replies, visibly uncomfortable.

kepler’s lips curve into a smile. “could you face killing me?”

“this game’s stupid,” jacobi mutters, ignoring the ringing in his ears, the hot flash of colour in his cheeks, the humiliation as it burns through him at the inability to say _ten_ and the reluctance to actually answer the question. both, in their own way, tell kepler the answer. rejecting the game altogether carves the truth into stone. _could you face killing me?_

kepler laughs, quietly, humourlessly. he says nothing. jacobi is left alone to the silence once more.

 

**Author's Note:**

> as always, i'm @aihera on tumblr


End file.
